


Electing Helplessness

by Strings (fangirlgeekout)



Series: Discovery & Laughter [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bondage, Feathers & Featherplay, Fluff, M/M, TWP - Tickles Without Plot, Tickling, Ticklish Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 10:30:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13269564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirlgeekout/pseuds/Strings
Summary: Cas proves how much he trusts Dean, despite how often the hunter whines about things not being fair.---The feathertips danced down just under Castiel’s armpits. Cas squirmed and started to giggle. He pulled gently at his wrists, mostly to feel the resistance. Being restrained in such a mortal way was an interesting new experience. Odd, that something so simple could make a human so powerless. He jerked to the left at a little spike of sensitivity and tried not to snort.





	Electing Helplessness

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted Jan 2014 on [Tumblr](http://wordstrings.tumblr.com/post/72161112308/electing-helplessness).

“Come on, it’s only fair,” Dean whined. Castiel regarded him with annoyance.

“You have gotten the upper hand on me seventeen times, Dean. The reverse has only happened on three occasions. That is more than fair.”

“Not when you use your mojo it’s not,” Dean frowned.

“Even if one were to mathematically quadruple the perceived offense - which is admittedly extreme - to account for your feelings of what’s fair, it’s still rather one-sided.”

Dean sighed. “You’re impossible.”

“On the contrary-”

“Just shut up, Cas.”

The angel’s expression lost its hard edge. “Have I angered you?”

“Nope.” Dean stood abruptly from the motel bed and strode toward the tiny kitchenette.

Cas worried his brow as Dean clinked around in the fridge in search of a beer. Upon freeing one, the hunter dragged a chair out from the little table and plopped into it, swinging his feet up on the table and popping the bottle cap. It was Cas’ turn to sigh.

“If it means that much to you, I’ll do it.”

Dean glared up at him. “I don’t want you to do it out of some misplaced sense of pity. I don’t need that from you.”

“Were you not ‘playing the emotional card’ at the beginning of this conversation?”

“Stop being all… logical!”

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Dean was the first to duck his head. “I just… I want you to  _want_  to do it. If you’re not completely on-board with the idea, then I’d rather not do it at all. And forget I ever mentioned it.” He took a long gulp from his bottle.

Cas looked pensively at the floor. “Dean, you know I trust you.”

“Sometimes.”

Castiel jerked his head up, then rose and stalked over to the table, towering over the hunter and fixing him with a piercing stare. “ _Always_ ,” he ground out. “After  _everything_  - how dare you think otherwise.”

Dean gazed down at the bottle as he rolled the neck between his fingers. “Can we just drop it?” he muttered.

Cas glared at him for a few more seconds, then disappeared with a rustle of wings.

———

The next two days were a bit strained. Dean refused to make eye contact, and Cas spent a lot of time God-knows-where; the hunter assumed he was being avoided. Great.

So he was more than a little surprised when he stepped out of the bathroom late one evening, still toweling his hair dry, and was met with a solemn-looking angel standing in the middle of the room.

“What do you want?” he growled.

“Dean.” The word was heavy. “I… want to apologize.”

“For what?” He dropped the damp towel on the floor and rummaged for a t-shirt.

“I don’t want you to ever think I won’t trust you. If I’ve done something to make you unsure of that, I’m sorry.”

“You’ve got a hell of a way of showing it.” Dean stopped, momentarily confused when Cas started unknotting his tie. “What are you doing?”

The blue fabric slithered out from under the angel’s collar, and Cas stepped forward. He presented the tie in one hand, and a crumpled scrap of paper in the other. “You’ll need these.”

Dean took the paper first, smoothing it out in his palm. It was a precise little drawing of a sigil he didn’t recognize. “What’s this?”

“I had to find the right one.” Cas dug in the pocket of his trench and produced a piece of chalk. “You can draw it on this-” he gestured with the hand still holding his tie - “and I won’t be able to get out.”

Dean stared at the sigil, then at the chalk and necktie, and finally at Castiel’s face. “Is this what you’ve been doing the last couple days? Looking for this?”

“Yes.”

“Well… shit. Now I feel like a jackass.” He rubbed at the back of his neck.

Cas just looked at him, hands still extended with his offerings.

“You want to do this  _now_?”

The hands lowered. “If you’d rather not-“

“Oh no, I do,” Dean said, holding back a tentative smile. “But only if you’re sure.”

Cas nodded. Dean’s grin was as bright as the sun.

———

Dean snugged the knotted blue fabric one last time and kissed the inside of Cas’ wrist just below where it wrapped around the joint. “How’s that? Not too tight?”

The angel tugged experimentally. “No.”

“Good.” The hunter bent to dig in his duffel bag on the floor next to the bed.

Castiel tried to chase away any remaining doubts in his mind. He took a deliberate breath, feeling the stretch in his bare chest as his outstretched arms pulled slightly against their restraints.

He was laid out on the bed like a  _T_ , plain white boxers his only protection, with his own tie looped around his right wrist and one of Dean’s on his left. His ankles were bound together with another of the hunter’s Fed neckties, with chalk sketches adorning each strip of fabric all the way down the length until they disappeared under the edge of the mattress.

Dean popped back up, excitement obvious on his face as he laid something on the bedside table Cas couldn’t quite see. “First things first,” he said, and leaned over the angel’s prone body for a warm, solid kiss. Cas habitually started to reach for the hunter’s neck, but was thwarted by the ties. Dean smiled knowingly as he drew back. “Mmm. This is gonna be fun.”

The hunter vaulted up on the bed with his knee and swung a leg over Cas’ hips, bouncing a little as he settled in. “Ready?” he asked gleefully, flicking his fingertips at the crook of the angel’s shoulder. Cas quirked his lips and hunched a bit, then nodded.

Leaning diagonally, Dean reached for the bedside table and shuffled something there. He came back upright holding two oil-black secondary feathers, about eight to ten inches long.

“Are- are those mine?” Cas asked with wide eyes.

Dean practically sparkled. “Yep,” he popped the  _p_. “I know from experience that they tickle like hell. Figured you should find that out, too - you know,  _fairness_  and all that.”

Castiel shrank back into the mattress. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You keep citing what is and is not fair. Yet your actions consistently disregard any aspect of ‘fairness.’”

“Is now really the time you wanna be bringing up my character flaws?” Dean asked with a cocked eyebrow, twirling the feathers in his fingers.

Cas pinned his lips shut.

“Didn’t think so.” He flicked one feather under Cas’ chin, which ducked down in avoidance. “Now, see, you blocking me is exactly the opposite of what we’re going for here,” he said, cracking a devious smile. “Let’s put those sigils to good use, why don’t we?”

The feathertips danced down just under Castiel’s armpits. Cas squirmed and started to giggle. He pulled gently at his wrists, mostly to feel the resistance. Being restrained in such a mortal way was an interesting new experience. Odd, that something so simple could make a human so powerless. He jerked to the left at a little spike of sensitivity and tried not to snort.

The sensation snaked upward, swirling into his underarms and settling into persistent eddies. Cas squeaked and twisted, feeling how Dean’s decisive weight on his hips muted the motion. The feathers didn’t stop, circling and circling, light but steady. He tugged on his wrists again, a bit harder this time. It was one thing to set his jaw and hold himself back, testing how long he could keep his vessel’s instincts at bay; but to be forced into endurance was quite another. He tipped his head back, unrelenting giggles burbling up his throat.

Well, he couldn’t truly say he’d been  _forced_  - elected helplessness, perhaps. It struck him how ludicrous this situation would have appeared to him before his experiences with the Winchesters. With Dean. Absolute trust was something he’d  _thought_  he had with his brothers and sisters and commanders. How distorted the world had become, when a mortal soul out of Hell was worthy of more faith than his brethren. He shook his head and laughed, partly physiological response, partly joy at this improbable relationship, partly at the absurdity of how much freedom was embodied in choosing to be subdued.

“You look a little distracted.” Dean’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Is there something more interesting going on that I’m missing?” The hunter let go of the feathers for a moment and scribbled his fingers in Cas’ underarms. Cas jerked and squealed at the sudden change in sensation, grateful when it stopped a few seconds later.

“You’re adorable,” the hunter smiled. He slipped a hand behind Castiel’s head and leaned in for a kiss. Cas chuckled into Dean’s lips when he felt one of the feathers brushing his collarbone.

“And you’re insatiable.”

“Can’t help it when you’re so goddamn cute all the time.”

The hand pulled back out from behind his head, and the second feather made itself known at the opposite side of his neck. Cas rolled his head, snorting lightly and scrunching his nose. His eyes squeezed shut when it tickled up to his ear, filling his head with the frothing sound of its strokes.

Dean was shifting his weight, shimmying down onto Cas’ thighs, the motion pulling the white waistband of his boxers lower. The pair of feathers came skimming down his chest, dragging their long edges across his ribs before they paused and lifted.

“Actually…” Dean hummed thoughtfully, then hopped down from the bed, swiping at the bedside table and ducking down into his bag again. When he came back up and reseated himself, he had two bunches of feathers, all different sizes but held so the tips more or less lined up. He smirked at Cas’ anxious expression.

“You have no idea what those wings of yours do to a person. It’s cruel.” Dean studied the splays of feathers in his hands. “This still won’t be exactly accurate, but…” he shrugged and twirled them across the angel’s torso.

Cas bolted up, laughing. At least, his shoulders made it two or three inches off the mattress. “AHahahahaha! N-nohoho-“ He yanked on his arms and legs, the knots of the ties creaking. The feathers swooped up over the lower ridges of his ribs and down into the bend of his waist. Cas bucked and giggled uncontrollably when they flicked across his abdomen. “DeheheHEAN!”

The hunter looked up, whisking the soft tips along the low waistband. “Yep, I’m right here - not goin’ anywhere,” he grinned. Back and forth, back and forth, spiral across the hipbones, back and forth.

Cas was cackling, wheezing, falling into silent laughter.

Dean kept the feathers swishing and bent forward to plant a mouthy kiss on the angel’s quivering belly, just to the right of his navel. Cas squeaked and sucked in his stomach. Dean smiled into the soft skin and smacked a ring of rough kisses all around the belly button, twirling his handfuls of feathers along Cas’ hips all the while. Castiel writhed and screeched, biceps straining.

“EEEAHAhahahahahaha- st-s-stohohohohop!”

Dean immediately pulled up. “Too much?”

“I-hehehe- I just need a break… plehease…”

The hunter smiled down at him and dropped the feathers on the bed. He smoothed his palms over the faintly pink skin, calming the phantom sensations. “How are your arms?”

“…Weary.”

“But okay?”

Cas smiled tiredly. “Yes.”

Dean slid off Cas’ thighs and snuggled up to his side. He could feel the heave in his chest as Cas tried to recapture his breath. The hunter reached down and plucked up a feather from the mattress, reassuring the angel with a soothing hum. He drew the dark tip gently across the skin of Castiel’s outstretched arm.

Cas closed his eyes, soaking in the hunter’s physical contact. He shivered at the feather’s touch with a small contented smile. His muscles relaxed as Dean stroked one arm, then the other.

“Better?”

“ _Mmmmm_.” Cas felt another open kiss, this one pressing into his jaw. He swiveled to meet it, but Dean was already bouncing off the bed. “That was not a very long break,” he grumbled.

"Ah, shush, you recover way faster than normal,” Dean chided. He swept the feathers into a pile near the edge of the mattress and pawed through them. Picking out a relatively short, wide one, he playfully held it up for the angel’s approval. “How’s this one look? Tickly enough?”

The hunter’s face was a perfect mix of cockiness and mischief, and Cas couldn’t help but squirm at the anticipation crawling over his skin.

“What, you’re not gonna give me your expert opinion?” Dean jumped back up onto the bed and sat cross-legged next to Cas’ legs. He touched the tip of the feather to the side of Castiel’s knee and spun the shaft between his fingers.

Cas sucked his lower lip between his teeth, biting back a giggle. It spilled out, though, when the feather swept down to force into the tight space between the mattress and the underside of his knee. His leg jumped, pulling taut against the tie around his ankles, but a gentle downward pressure from Dean’s other hand on top of his knee was all it took to minimize the motion. Cas barked a sharp laugh when the fingers of that hand started to join in, squeezing around his kneecap. “AAGH! Dohohohon’t!”

“Oh, are your knees ticklish or somethin’?” Dean kept kneading and feathering around the joint and looked up at Cas’ giggling, scrunched-up face. “Guess so. Bet I know what’s worse, though.”

Castiel took two gasping breaths in the interval between when he silently thanked nobody in particular that the hunter had abandoned his knees and when he realized with jolt what the next target was. “Dean, no-  _wait_!”

“Nope, don’t think I will.”

“PleaheHEHEASE!” Cas squealed as Dean roughly grabbed the toes of his foot and started sawing the feather between them. “NYAAAhahahahahahaha!”

Dean chuckled and slipped off the end of the bed, shifting and wriggling his fingers around Cas’ toes as he turned to fully face the soles. He dropped the feather to get in a moment or two of good solid spidering along the instep and ball of Castiel’s foot, tickling as relentlessly as he could with nails and fingertips.

Cas tried to squeak out some pleading noises, but mostly just cackled helplessly.

Man, Dean  _loved_  that sound. When Castiel truly lost himself in laughter, all self-control and steadfast dignity forgotten; the way he crumpled into mirth. And the way he allowed Dean to propel him there - because it was only ever Cas  _allowing_  it. Dean knew he couldn’t do anything a friggin’  _angel of the Lord_  wouldn’t permit him to do. Well… okay, he’d defied angels plenty of times before. Didn’t give a shit, really. But Castiel… Cas was  _his_  angel. And Cas had let him do  _this_ , had let him ask for and take away his power, had given him permission to drive him absolutely mad with that magnificent laughter. God, he loved it.

The feather was picked up again and scribbled quill-first up Cas’ sole. 

“ _DON’T_!” Cas howled. “Nonono-nohohohooo!”

“Ask nicely,” Dean prompted brightly.

“ _PLEAHEHEHEHEHEHEEEEEASE_!”

The note of desperation in the angel’s shriek was genuine. Time to stop. Dean let the feather go and traced his fingers gently in its place, savoring the last few breathless giggles before stilling his hands.

“You-” he kissed Cas’ ankle, earning a surprised little huff - “are-” a kiss on the calf - “amazing-” the knee. He climbed back up on the bed and crawled forward, smooching as he went. “And I-” hip - “love-” diaphragm - “you.” He ended at Castiel’s neck, pecking little kisses that he didn’t try  _too_  hard to keep from fluttering teasingly against the sensitive skin.

Cas fidgeted and exhaled a shaky breath through still-smiling lips. “Are you… letting me go now?”

Dean hummed into his shoulder. “I probably should. Kinda want to just flip you over and go again. But I don’t think that would be very nice of me right now.”

Castiel shook his head slowly, concentrating on taking steady breaths. “No, it would not. Maybe next time.”

Dean tried not to perk up too obviously.  _Next time_  was something he could wait for.

 

 


End file.
